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Pediatric Emergency Playbook

You make tough calls when caring for acutely ill and injured children. Join us for strategy and support, through clinical cases, research and reviews, and best-practice guidance in our ever-changing acute-care landscape. This is your Pediatric Emergency Playbook.
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Now displaying: October, 2015
Oct 1, 2015

EMS is bringing you a child with a VP shunt, port-a-cath, trached on a vent, seizing, hypotensive, and now desaturating – ETA – 3 minutes. Are you ready?

Medicine is evolving. As technology advances, we need to meet the challenge of taking care of our patients who have come to rely on this technology for their basic needs.  Before we go further, remember to assess the parent and the child as a unit.  The caregiver who is usually the parent, is a rich source of knowledge about the child’s particular condition and past experience.  Take them seriously, and be on the lookout for caregiver burnout.

Tracheostomy Troubles

4-month-old baby boy born full term with Pierre Robin Sequence, febrile, not eating anything, now with breathing difficulty.
Place on trach collar oxygen, suction those secretions; flush with small amounts of saline, and repeat.

Any child symptomatic with a trach? Remember to monitor for hypoxia and bradycardia.

Tracheostomy indications: obstruction, primary respiratory compromise, or a neurologic disorder.  The obstruction may be a tumor, post-infectious, or addressing a congenital anomaly.  Children may have bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a restrictive lung disease such as scoliosis. A wide array of neurologic problems can result in a child’s having a trach, such as cerebral palsy, TBI, or spinal muscular atrophy.

Early complications of trachs especially in the first few months – include bleeding, pneumomediastinum, accidental decanulation, wound breakdown, and subcutaneous emphysema. The most common later complications include infection and granuloma formation. Tracheo-esophageal fistulas and trachea-innominate fistulas are thankfully very rare.

VP Shunt Shudderings

11-year-old girl with a history of prematurity, intraventricular hemorrhage, and subsequent flaccid paralysis with neurogenic bladder. She is brought in by her mother because of constipation and “not acting her usual self”.  She is afebrile, abdomen is soft, full of stool.

The most common shunt is the ventriculoperitoneal shunt, originating in a lateral ventricle and tracking subcutaneously down the neck and chest until the distal end enters and coils in the peritoneal space.  Less common types include ventriculoatrial, ventriculopleural, ventriculocisternal, ventriculo-vesicular (to gall bladder) and the lumbo-peritoneal, usually reserved for spina bifida.

The common denominator: hydrocephalus.  The most common causes are tumor, congenital anomalies, hemorrhage, or post-infectious obstructions.

The two most common complications of VP shunts are malfunction (due to obstruction, fracture, or kinking) or infection.  The slit-ventricle syndrome results from overdrainage, causing headaches and ataxia and the slit-ventricle syndrome.  An abdominal pseudocyst forms when cells floating in the peritoneal cavity aggregate on the distal tip of the VP shunt, forming a biofilm that fills with CSF.  VP shunts, like any foreign body, can migrate and erode through intestines and skin.

Classically in severe hydrocephalus an infant or toddler will have sun-setting eyes – the irises look like a setting sun against the prominent bulbar conjunctiva.  However, the presentation is usually much more subtle; if the child just feels off or if the parent tells you he is not acting right, this is a shunt malfunction until proven otherwise.

Garton et al. in the Journal of Neurosurgery followed 344 children with shunts, and found that in the first six months after a shunt is placed, the presence of nausea or vomiting carried a positive LR pf 10.4 for shunt malfunction.  Irritability conveyed a positive LR of 9.8 for shunt malfunction. Decreased LOC was 100% predictive.

Most shunt infections occur within a few weeks after placement. 90% of infections occur within the first 9 months. Fever is only 60% sensitive, but CRP is 95% specific.

If the child has severe mental status changes, hypertension, and/or bradycardia, tap the shunt emergently.

Head of the bed is 30 degrees; sterile fashion: don a cap, mask, faceshield, and sterile gloves, chlorhexidine or betadine to clean.  Use a 23 or 25 g butterfly attached to a manometer, and advance slowly. Pressures above 25 mmH20 are reliably indicative of a distal shunt obstruction. If there is no return of CSF, or there is poor flow, there probably is a proximal obstruction.  Make note of the pressure you get, allow the pressure to equilibrate, remove the needle, and dress it sterilely. Be ready to take over the airway if needed, and use standard ICP lowering temporizing tactics until a neurosurgeon is found.

Vascular Device Dilemmas

A 3-year-old boy with ALL undergoing consolidation chemotherapy has had vomiting with abdominal pain since yesterday; he is febrile, tachycardic, and pale; there is mild tenderness to palpation in the right lower quadrant, and his capillary refill is 3 seconds. He is in compensated shock.

The Huber needle is not a resuscitative line.  Obtain proper access to give fluids -- do not rely on the port-a-cath.

Vascular devices are notoriously troublesome. In the European Respiratory Journal, Munck et al. reviewed cases of patients who needed to have their vascular devices out. 43% of them got them out for was for occlusion, 21% infection; other reasons included displacement, rupture, and skin necrosis. Only 2.5% of them were removed for clinical improvement.

When a child or an adult is at risk for a massive air embolism, we should do three things: clamp the device proximal to the fracture or defect, hyperoxygenate, and perform Durant’s maneuver, or left lateral decubitus in Trendelenberg. This forces a presumed air embolus to stay in the apex of the right ventricle until we figure out what to do.  You can put the US probe on and look for a whirlwind of tiny bubbles to confirm – it is very sensitive and can detect as little as 0.05 ml/kg of air.  Some references advocate for hyperbarics to allow the embolus to resolve, others comment on using a needle to aspirate air.  The main thing for us is to suspect it, detect it, control it, and if the child arrests, to do vigorous CPR to mechanically disrupt the bubbles.

G-tube Tumult

A 17-year-old boy with a history of botulism had a rough ICU course, home after rehabilitation, with some residual dysmotility issues, still partially g-tube dependent. No complaints in the ED, but there is irritation around the stoma, and discomfort with g-tube manipulation.

G-tubes are placed for one of three reasons: insufficient intake, increased demand, or increased loss.  Insufficient intake may be due to anatomical problems, prematurity, or failure to thrive.  Increased demand may be temporary, such as in burns, s/p cardiac surgery, or ay prolonged recovery.  Increased losses may be from enteropathies, or short gut syndrome.

Alphabet Tube

Gastrostomy or g-tubes end directly in the stomach. Whatever you can take by mouth can go into the g-tube, including medications and bolus feeds.

Jejunostomy tubes, or J-tubes are placed by IR or surgery for babies with severe reflux – this is for drip feeds, usually done at night.

Gastro-jejunostomy tubes or G-J tubes use the G port for medications, and the J port for continuous feeds.

We do not pull or replace or touch G-J or J tubes in the ED, but we can place a Foley catheter in the stoma to keep it patent if needed.

Buried bumper syndrome” occurs when the patient has not changed his g-tube for much longer than recommended, or if there is a dramatic change in habitus. The inner balloon is pulled up and away from the stomach lumen, so that it is displaced and fixed – causing pain, inadequate feeds, obstruction, and sometimes peritonitis.

Take Home Messages

Tracheostomy: the stoma matures in one month – you can change out after that, suction, suction, suction, and you can place an ETT if the patient is critical.

Ventriculoperitoneal Shunts: 90% of infections occur within the first 9 months.

Vascular Devices: assume the line is not functional, and use another to resuscitate, especially in port-a-caths.

Gastrostomy Tubes: buried bmpers are bad business – be aware of the painful, obstructed, poorly mobile g-tube. The stoma matures in one month is open, three months of it’s a PEG. If it has fallen out, you have 1-3 hours before the stoma begins to close – temporize with a foley catheter.

When it comes to the technologically dependent child in the ED, familiarity breeds…confidence!

Selected References

Babu R, Spicer RD. Implanted vascular devices (ports) in children: compications and their prevention. Pediatr Surg Int (2002) 18: 50-53

DiBaise JK, Scolapio JS. Home Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. Gastroenterol Clin N Am 36 (2007) 123-144l

Feinberg A et al. Gastrointestinal Care of Children and Adolescents with Developmental Disabilities. Pediatr Clin N Am 55 (2008) 1343–1358

Garton HJ. Piatt JH. Hydrocephalus. Pediatr Clin N Am 51 (2004) 305– 325

Kusminsky RE. Complications of Central Venous Catheterization. J Am Coll Surg. January 17, 2007.

Marek A. Mirski MA et al. Diagnosis and Treatment of Vascular Air Embolism. Anesthesiology 2007; 106:164–77

Marks JH. Pulmonary Care of Children and Adolescents with Developmental Disabilities. Pediatr Clin N Am 55 (2008) 1299–1314

Munck A et al. Follow-up of 452 totally implantable vascular devices in cystic fibrosis patients. Eur Respir J 2004; 23: 430–434

Shinkwin CA, Gibbin KP. Tracheostomy in children. J Royal Soc Med. Volume 89 April 1996

Simpkins C. Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt Infections in Patients with Hydrocephalus. Pediatr Nurs Nov 2005 Vol 31, No 6

Trachsel D, Hammer J. Indications for tracheostomy in children. Paediatric Resp Rev (2006) 7, 162–168

Wright SE,VanDahm K. Long-term care of the tracheostomy patient. Clin Chest Med 24 (2003) 473– 487

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